Washington Attorney General Nick Brown has banded together with his counterparts in 11 other states, pushing back against measures that they believe would negatively impact transgender individuals seeking passports aligned with their gender identity. This organized opposition comes as a response to an executive order from the Trump administration, which has seemingly ignited a national debate on gender definitions and identification documentation.
Issued on January 20th, this executive order reinscribed a binary concept of sex on official documents. "These discriminatory rules would add confusion and costs for taxpayers merely to satisfy the president’s fixation on dehumanizing an entire class of people," Brown stated, as reported by the Washington Attorney General’s office. The State Department followed up with proposals to alter passport information collection forms in a manner that could significantly hinder transgender and non-binary individuals from living and traveling unencumbered.
The coalition of attorneys general presented a comment letter challenging these moves. Citing potential trouble for non-binary and transgender persons using identity documents not matching their gender identity, the letter highlighted issues ranging from travel disruptions to psychological harm. Additionally, inconsistencies between state and federal identification could lead to resource-intensive discrepancies, especially since states like Washington already permit gender marker changes on birth certificates to reflect gender identity accurately.
Such policy alterations are predicted to create a disconnect between state-issued identification and their federal counterparts. AG Brown, alongside Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and others, stressed in their comment letter the importance of coherent documentation. The attorneys general argue that any benefits gained by enforcing a strict gender marker policy are dramatically outstripped by the toll it would lay on individuals and state resources – a stance informed by the experiences of at least 16 states that recognize and accommodate gender identity changes on state-issued documents.
